Reviewed: Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: A Critical Edition (Victorian Literature and Culture Series), trans. Edward FitzGerald, ed. Christopher Decker. Publisher: University of Virginia Press, 1997, reissued 5/08. Paperback $25.00, 258pp.

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Aged Wine, In All Its Ruby Hues

In December 1852, Edward Byles Cowell, a close friend of Edward FitzGerald, suggested to him that he begin studying Persian. Cowell had come across a Persian [Ouseley] manuscript of quatrains (rubaiyat) by the tenth-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam at the Bodleian Library and sent it to FitzGerald in 1856. In the same year, after Cowell moved to India to begin his appointment as Professor of Modern History and Political Economy at Presidency College in Calcutta, he came across a manuscript of the rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which contained 516 quatrains. He sent a copy to FitzGerald in June 1857, which became the basis of FitzGerald's rendering of the poetry into English. What eventually became known as the 'Calcutta Manuscript’ was sent in a fragrant box, which left its scent on the papers. Apparently, FitzGerald felt a particular attraction to the "sweet-scented manuscript," at a time when he was trying to come to terms with his homosexuality, his subsequent estrangement from his wife, and his separation from his close friends, especially Cowell.

Christopher Decker asserts that what drew FitzGerald to the rubaiyat was his affinity for the epicurean content of the poems, which in some way reflected his own life situation at the time:

In many ways the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is the epitome of FitzGerald's life, a memorious summary of his desires, values, and writing habits. He composed the poems during the most difficult period of his life, when he badly needed the consolation of poetry and Khayyam's philosophy. (xx)

He saw in Khayyam's verse not expressions of Sufi mysticism (which over time has become the conventional interpretation of Khayyam's rubaiyat), of God objectified as the beloved or wine as representing intoxication with the divine, but those of a hedonist expressing skepticism and religious doubt. In fact, this echoes some of the reaction to Khayyam's work during the poet's own lifetime. In a 1249 abridgement of al-Qifti's News of the Learned with Reports of the Sages titled History of Philosophers (by Az-Zanzani), Khayyam is described as being threatened with execution on the charge of heresy because his "fugitive verses" were seen as "a tissue of error like poisonous snakes" by the orthodox religious establishment. As a result, Khayyam went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, drawing in "the reins of his tongue and pen" (Avery and Health-Stubbs 33-4).

However, it must be noted that over the centuries, Khayyam was neither the first nor the last poet suspected of Sufi tendencies to be accused of blasphemy by the religious establishment.

Nevertheless, FitzGerald read something in Khayyam's poetry that appealed to him personally. A reason for this possibly lies in the nature of the rubaiyat itself—something that could explain the immense popularity of FitzGerald's English Rubaiyat as well. According to Avery and Heath-Stubbs, "The Persian verses' pithy comments range through the spectrum of nearly all the most fundamental and universally shared parts of human experience, which goes a long way to explain why so many men and women have loved and learnt by heart FitzGerald's translations" (13).

Regarding the overwhelming response to Omar Khayyam's poetry in the western world, Jan Rypka states: "In them [the quatrains] the European perceived his own despondency as though reflected in a mirror" (193).

Come fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly—and Lo! The Bird is on the Wing.

In the introduction to his Critical Edition, Decker briefly sketches the history behind all four editions of FitzGerald's English Omar. The first edition of FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia was published in 1859 by G. Norman, Printers and distributed by Bernard Quaritch. It was a slim, 31-page pamphlet and consisted of a ten-page preface, seventy five quatrains and five pages of notes. The print run was for 250 copies priced at one Shilling. FitzGerald himself incurred the cost of the printing and the modest advertising.

By far the longest and most intriguing section in the introduction deals with the publication of the second (1868) edition of FitzGerald's Rubaiyat. According to Decker, FitzGerald's desire for a second edition was sparked by the 1867 publication of a French translation of Omar Khayyam's rubaiyat by J.B. Nicolas, Les quatrains de Kheyam traduits du persan (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1867), which contained 464 quatrains. Nicolas's French edition was a more literal prose translation of the Persian accompanied by a strong scholarly apparatus in which he interpreted the wine so often mentioned by Khayyam as a Sufi code for mystical rapture and intoxication with the divine, and not the hedonism and epicureanism espoused by FitzGerald. As Decker states, "refashioning a second version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was FitzGerald's disquieted reaction to the French edition" (xxxvi).

The second edition of FitzGerald's Rubaiyat constitutes the most comprehensive changes made to any of the editions. The number of quatrains was expanded by thirty five, making a total of 110 quatrains in the 1868 edition. But the most telling changes were in the additional five-page conclusion added to the preface in which he refuted Nicolas' assertions regarding Khayyam's mystical leanings. FitzGerald questioned Nicolas' sources regarding his interpretation: "What historical Authority has Mons. Nicolas to show that Omar gave himself up 'avec passion a l'etude de la philosophie des Soufis?'" Indeed, FitzGerald's refutation of Nicolas was so vehement in places that he even assumed a mocking tone towards his French counterpart:

. . . whenever Wine, Wine-bearer, &c., occur in the Text—which is often enough—Mons. Nicolas carefully annotates 'Dieu,' 'La Divinite,' &c.: so carefully indeed that one is tempted to think that he was indoctrinated by the Sufi with whom he read the Poems.

Decker asserts that even though FitzGerald had scholarly objections to Nicolas' interpretations, he never meant his own versions of Khayyam's rubaiyat to constitute a scholarly edition. Especially when compared to a literal translation of the original Persian, FitzGerald's lines had as much a sense of original poetry as translation. "Intimations of FitzGerald's mixed understanding of the Rubaiyat as both translation and poem had already appeared in the form of his response to the French Omar of Nicolas," writes Decker. "While raising a scholarly objection to Nicolas' blindness to the internal contradictions of the French edition. he still chose to concentrate his attention on altering the Rubaiyat for poetic purposes" (xxxix). This is evident in the texts of FitzGerald's third (1872) and fourth (1879) editions.

It is interesting to note (something that Decker does not address but is evident from the reprinted text of the different editions) that the title of the first edition of FitzGerald's Rubaiyat reads "Translated into English Verse." In all subsequent editions, it has been changed to "Rendered into English Verse."

Other than providing wonderful insight into FitzGerald's attitude and intentions regarding his English renderings of Omar Khayyam's verse, Decker's critical edition is a valuable resource for scholars interested in studying FitzGerald's Rubaiyat by providing the opportunity of reading the poems in their multiple versions. Decker has reprinted the entire text of all four editions of the Rubaiyat (1859, 1868, 1872 and 1879) published during FitzGerald's lifetime, complete with FitzGerald's introductions and notes to all editions. The work also includes four appendices: Appendix I, entitled "Comparative Texts, with a Table of the Sequence of Quatrains in the Rubaiyat;" Appendix II, "FitzGerald's Latin Translations;" Appendix III, "The Pronunciation of Persian Words in the Rubaiyat;" and Appendix IV, "Selected Glossary."

Appendix I is of particular scholarly value for anyone interested in tracing the additions, subtractions, reordering and revisions from one edition to another. It includes the comparative texts of each individual quatrain listed in chronological order according to the date of the edition. For example, quatrain VIII in the 1859 edition reads:

And look—a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke—and a thousand scatter'd into Clay:
And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.

In the 1868 edition, which included thirty five additional quatrains, the quatrain is numbered IX in the sequence and is revised as follows:

Morning a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.

In the 1872 edition, still numbered IX in the sequence, the quatrain has been revised yet again:

Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.

In the 1879 edition, the quatrain maintains its position in the sequence as number IX and its wording remains unchanged from the 1872 edition. Neither FitzGerald in his notes nor Decker in his glossary identify Jamshyd and Kaikobad as mythical Persian kings.

In Appendix I, Decker also provides a "Table of the Sequences of the Quatrains in the Rubaiyat." The table is of immense value (again, mostly to the specialist) as it shows how the quatrains are reordered, or are added or deleted from one edition to another. Decker's own description of his critical apparatus in constructing the table is worth repeating here:

At the far left of the table, a single column lists the stanza numerals I-CX, with two additional markers for the preface and notes. Across from each numeral or marker is a letter corresponding to the quatrain found in that position in each of the four principle editions. Each quatrain in the 1859 edition is lettered A-WWW. New quatrains in the 1868 edition are lettered a-hh in lower case italics. (229)

It must be noted here, as indeed Decker does point out, that by "stanza," he is referring to an individual, numbered quatrain. For example, one only needs to consult the table of sequences to discover that quatrain XIV in the 1868 edition only appeared as an addition to the 1868 edition and was eliminated from both subsequent editions:

Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spin
The Thread of present Life away to win—
What? For ourselves, who know not if we shall
Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!

One of the virtues of including both the comparative texts and the table of sequences is that they can be used side-by-side to provide a convenient tool for comparing texts. An interesting example is quatrain XXVI in the 1859 edition:

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

Some cross checking between the comparative texts section and the table of sequences reveals that the same quatrain was revised and included as quatrain XXVIII in the 1868 edition:

Another Voice, when I am sleeping, cries,
"The Flower should open with the Morning skies."
And a retreating Whisper, as I wake—
"The Flower that once has blown for ever dies."

The quatrain, however, was dropped from all subsequent editions.

This poem reveals FitzGerald's approach in rendering Khayyam's poems into English. Although similar sentiments are expressed in both versions, the wording is vastly different, which brings up the question of whether FitzGerald had used different poems as the basis of his translation, or if he had morphed more than one original Persian rubai (singular of rubaiyat) into his English lines—something that he had admitted doing on some occasions. The discrepancy between the two versions seems too great. In fact, the omission of Khayyam's name from the first line in the 1868 version raises a red flag about the original source FitzGerald was using. The value of Decker's work lies in providing the opportunity to look at the poems in a comparative perspective, and in shedding light on exactly this type of inquiry.

A seminal study of the Persian sources used by FitzGerald in writing his English rubaiyat is by Edward Allen (Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam with their Original Persian Sources. London, 1899). Regarding the fidelity of FitzGerald's lines to the Persian original, Allen states:

Of Edward FitzGerald's quatrains, forty-nine are faithful and beautiful paraphrases of single quatrains to be found in the Ouseley or Calcutta manuscripts, or both. Forty-four are traceable to more than one quatrain, and may therefore be termed the 'composite' quatrains. Two are inspired by quatrains found by FitzGerald only in Nicolas' text. Two are quotations reflecting the whole spirit of the original poem. Two are traceable exclusively to the influence of the Mantiqu't Tayr of Faridud-Din Attar. Two quatrains primarily inspired by Umar were influenced by Odes of Hafidh. And three, which appeared only in the first and second editions, and were afterwards suppressed by Edward FitzGerald himself, are not—so far as a careful search enables me to judge—attributable to any lines of the original texts. (as quoted in Browne 258-259)

There is much uncertainty about the authenticity of many of the rubaiyat attributed to Omar Khayyam. The oldest known manuscript of Rubaiyat written by Omar Khayyam (Bodleian, no. 525) dates from the year 865 of the Islamic calendar which corresponds to the years 1460/61, some three and a half centuries after Khayyam's death. It contains 158 quatrains. Other manuscripts exist that put the number of rubaiyat anywhere from 76 to 845 quatrains. A study conducted by Jesse Cadell, who claimed to have consulted all available manuscripts, identified over 1200 quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyam (Browne 257-8).

The problem of attribution is further exacerbated by the nature of the succinct rubai itself. As Browne states:

Both external and internal evidence fail us; the former because we possess no manuscript which even approaches the poet's time, the latter, because nearly all quatrains are so similar in form, meter, style, and diction, so brief in extent, so much more prone to treat of the Universal than of the Particular, and so easy to make or paraphrase, that not even the most accomplished Persian man of letters could seriously pretend to decide by their style as to their authorship. (258)

The problem of attribution regarding the Persian sources of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam may never be solved. Nevertheless, the Rubaiyat of Edward FitzGerald have assumed a poetic life of their own, [almost] regardless of the Persian originals in which they are rooted.

In the postscript to the introduction, Decker writes:

Attar's Conference of the Birds, another poem FitzGerald translated, offers a parable for the changing, multiplicitous nature of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. In Attar's mystical poem, the birds of the world set off on a pilgrimage to look for their king, the Simorgh. When finally they meet him face to face, he shows them through a looking glass that they and he are one, that he is each one of them and every one of them. Just so, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is each one of its texts and all of the texts together. (xlv)

Thanks to Christopher Decker's critical edition of Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the immortal quatrains can be enjoyed in all their multifarious incarnations.

REFERENCES

Avery, Peter and Heath-Stubbs. The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam. London: Penguin Books, 1979.
Browne, Edward G. A Literary History of Persian, Vol. II. Bethesda: Iran Books, 1997 (reprint of 1902 publication).
Rypka, Jan. History of Iranian Literature. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1968.

Banner graphic source: Photo (cropped) of a bas-relief depicting Armenians bringing their famous wine to the king; detail of a relief of the eastern stairs of the Apadana at Persepolis (Takht-e Jamshid), Iran. Photographed by Phillip Maiwald. Used here according to the terms of a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.